Basic Skills

• Decide what to wear before you go sailing.
• Equip a sailing boat for use.
• Check that your sailing boat is safe to use.

• Identify all of the parts of the boat, rigging & sails.
• Rig a boat for use and according to the weather conditions.
• De-rig a boat and secure / care for hull, foils and sails.
• Reef a boat while ashore.

Keelboat sailors will be able to reef their boat while on a mooring.

• A bowline
• A clove hitch

• Launch your boat and sail away from shore.
• Sail back to shore and recover your boat.
• Keelboat sailors will be able to identify different methods of launching a keelboat and describe how to launch a keelboat from a trailer using a slipway.

• Paddle or row a boat around a triangular course and come alongside.
• As both helm and crew, in light winds,
• Leave and return to a beach or slipway in the prevailing wind direction
• Describe how to land on a beach or slipway when the wind is offshore, crosshore and onshore
  • Reach across the wind
  • Sail up wind
  • Sail down wind
  • Tack the boat
  • Gybe the boat
  • Pick up, and leave a mooring
  • Come alongside a boat, pier, pontoon that is head to wind
  • Come alongside a pier or pontoon that is not head to wind
  • Recover a man overboard
  • Heave to
  • Sail under jib only*
• Catamaran sailors will be able to use a trapeze if carried.
• Keelboat sailors will be able to change a headsail.

• Right a capsized boat.
• Describe what to do if you are caught under an inverted boat.

• Describe how a sail and centre / dagger board works.
• Tell if risk of collision exist between two boats.
  • Describe what should happen when:
  • A motor boat and sailing boat meet
  • Two sailing boats on the same tack meet
  • Boats are being overtaken

• Identify when high and low tide occur using local tide tables.
• Describe how to estimate the rate and direction of the flow of tide and describe the effect that this might have on a sailor.

• Describe how wind speed, wind direction, visibility and temperature are measured and how these may affect a sailor.
• Obtain a weather forecast for your sailing area and describe how it might affect your planned activities.

• Explain why it is important tell someone where you are going and when you will be back.
• Describe how to use and care for distress flares.
• Describe how to care for someone who is very cold.
• Explain why it is important for a sailor to have some training in first aid

• Describe how to continue sailing and develop your sailing skills and knowledge.